OBSERVATIONS ON FOXIIUNTINC. 65 



haviiiL;- his hounds over-ridden, he thinks it " very extni- 

 ordinary, yet nevertheless true, th;it many people go out 

 for the sake of the riding part only ; the hunting is a 

 minor consideration." Hallooing, he adds, is even worse 

 than over-riding. There may be some faint hope of im- 

 proving a field that ride too forward, but a noisy one you 

 can never mend. 



He mentions the difficulty of finding good hunt ser- 

 vants, and disapproves of the system of " capping "1 which, 

 in the case of some packs near London, he says, led to a 

 bagman being turned out on Saturdays ; of course without 



' In olden days it was frequently the custom to make a " cap " for the hunt 

 servants whenever a fox was killed, a practice which, as may be supposed, led 

 to a fox often being mobbed in order that the "cap" might be earned. In 

 vol. xix. of the Sporting Magazine, p. 306, we are told that "Mr. Han- 

 bury's Hounds throw off on Monday, March 22nd, at Moor Garden Wood, 

 near Hatfield Peverell, Esse.x, in order to make a cap for honest Will Crane, 

 late huntsman to Colonel Bullock, now about to enter the ninetieth year of his 

 age. This veteran of the brush will take the field himself to see those friends 

 whom for so many years he has exhilarated by the superiority of his hunting skill 

 and the matchless melody of his manly voice. The hunt will dine together at the 

 Angel at KeKedon, when those sporstmen not able to dine may, by some 

 friend, contribute to Will's cap and so put a feather in their own." Will Crane, 

 it may be observed, was employed to train the hounds of Mr. Smith Barry 

 for their famous match on Newmarket Heath in 1762, against Mr. MeyncU's 

 hounds. Capping, too, was much in vogue formerly as a means of replenishing 

 the funds of a hunt, and it is curious to note that after the lapse of so many 

 years the method has been revived. At the meeting of the North Warwick- 

 shire Hunt held in the autumn of the present year (1895), the expediency of 

 capping was seriously discussed but it was not adopted. At the annual meeting 

 of the Southdown Hunt, however, held at about the same time, it was resolved 

 that all strangers should be capped to the extent of ten shillings per head. 



